Hopefully the other films have received the excellent treatment we sometimes associate with Sony titles but in a box set you can usually expect a little variation. Myhope is that the distinctive colours are all intact.

I recall 3 being beautifully spare masterpieces, Tall T, Ride Lonesome, and Comanche Station. I’ve heard Decision at Sundown has been re-evaluated in some quarters - though I can’t remember or find where - as one of his best, even more grim, spare and unrelenting, deconstructing the Westen hero. Buchanan I recall had more comedy elements, before getting serious and a broader focus on the township.

Nice to see Randy without his bellyband! I'd wondered if it might be concealing something salacious, in the manner of the censored version of the Edison short which used to circulate under the title Fatima's Belly Dance! (censored version at 33s). If anyone is commissioned to design a box of Edison shorts, there's an idea for you...

Wow, impressive. Has the length of the Frayling discussion been posted anywhere? That might be the single most enticing new feature (though I'm glad that it looks like this makes the Sony DVD set entirely redundant- I hate having to hang on to those for one interview or something.)

Indicator does not guarantee that every single title they release will get repressed in an unlimited edition. Presumably, as time goes on and we begin to get to titles that took 2-3 years to sell out, they'll begin not to be reissuing them: it remains to be seen how popular this set is, especially as pH hasn't really dipped their toes in the Western genre before now. But if the set sold like gangbusters I don't think any specific indication has been given they wouldn't just put out all five titles on their own.

Saw The Tall T at Quad Cinema. The first 15 or 20 minutes are so loose, I wondered if the next hour would be plotless, but pretty quickly what seemed casual reveals itself to be very meticulous and purposeful. Randolph Scott is a Western icon, but he doesn’t come across as much. He loses foolish bets in embarrassing fashion and he’s clumsy enough to knock his head into the occasional entrance, but taking him down notch after notch tightens the suspense for the remainder of the picture. He’s up against men who are more cautious and clever than him, and until the final minutes, he does very little except wait, obey and observe. The pacing is remarkable considering that it’s less than 80 minutes and it never moves that fast - it feels very concentrated.

The print looked great, very robust colors. Not crisp or sharp, it was a very thick and creamy look, understandable for a film that was shot open matte and essentially cropped into widescreen during projection. (Sort of like blowing up the midsection of an Academy ratio film.) This was obvious when they had to adjust the framing at the start but it was interesting how tight the framing had to be. After the Columbia logo, with the lady’s feet and I think legs chopped off, the edge of the frame was pretty close to the large letters of the opening credits. The final T in the title is actually slightly clipped but otherwise there’s a little breathing room around every other letter. Will see how these Blu-Ray discs compare.

hearthesilence wrote:Randolph Scott is a Western icon, but he doesn’t come across as much. He loses foolish bets in embarrassing fashion and he’s clumsy enough to knock his head into the occasional entrance,

...which was a genuine on-set accident, but both Scott and Richard Boone were savvy enough to react in character and Boetticher liked it so much that he kept it in.

MichaelB wrote:...which was a genuine on-set accident, but both Scott and Richard Boone were savvy enough to react in character and Boetticher liked it so much that he kept it in.

Nice! Boone was especially good - looking over his Wikipedia page, he seems to be much better known as a television actor, which may be why he looked so unfamiliar.

Another thing that stood out was how the man with the highest social standing is made out to be a complete s*** - that alone is common in Westerns, but it made a later scene stand out when Boone (having been well-established as a pretty terrible criminal) suddenly relates to Scott's character, asking about his private life and talking about his own working or middle class ambitions in ways that would be relatable to most people. It's startling, and I'm guessing a common trait in Elmore Leonard's stories, given my limited familiarity with them.

Aside from the opening scenes, the film generally sticks very closely to Elmore Leonard’s story, from which much of the dialogue was lifted more or less verbatim. It clearly wasn’t broken so didn’t need fixing.

hearthesilence wrote:Randolph Scott is a Western icon, but he doesn’t come across as much. He loses foolish bets in embarrassing fashion and he’s clumsy enough to knock his head into the occasional entrance,

...which was a genuine on-set accident, but both Scott and Richard Boone were savvy enough to react in character and Boetticher liked it so much that he kept it in.

Boone had a great career in film, hearthesilence, one like Jack Palemce built on being cast for his ability to menace with minimum effort. You should check out Hombre, which gives him one of the all time great scenes of intimidation

Ah, I actually have seen Hombre but it was a long time ago and I have a faint memory of it (though I do remember it sharing other narrative similarities with The Tall T, again probably not surprisingly since Leonard wrote both stories). Will have to re-visit it again though.

I also love Boone's menacing turn in Huston's bleak Kremlin Letter where he plays his spy boss with a neighborly folksiness that unwavers even as his machinations become more ruthless and uncompromising. Considering the sort of redneck shitkickers the CIA filled their ranks with early on, it's a very effective performance.